Hack and Commerce - y'all have it spot on and I wish more saw it that way.

The rub with those observations is that this is what those of us in the field have been working to do for years. When I was in school at State, the approach you are describing was derided as "Revisionist History", and has been heavily fought against by those outside the field of history. The modern field of history has worked hard to show through first hand accounts what was happening and why - warts and all - and we get drug thru the mud for it.